Obama Signs Open Data Policy Executive Order

Thursday May 9th 2013 by Cynthia Harvey

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U.S. agencies must make their data available to developers in machine-readable formats.

President Obama has signed an executive order that should be of particularly interest to developers. The Open Data Policy requires federal agencies to make their data available in “open, machine-readable formats,” so that developers can create apps that make use the data. “Starting today, we’re making even more government data available online, which will help launch even more new startups,” said President Obama. "And we’re making it easier for people to find the data and use it, so that entrepreneurs can build products and services we haven’t even imagined yet."

Interestingly, the Open Data Policy itself has been released as an open source project on GitHub. That means anyone can contribute with comments or suggestions, or they could even fork the government policy if they so choose.